22 new Covid-19 cases in Lucknow

Govt says UP’s death rate lower than other states, recoveries exceed fresh cases

LUCKNOW : The state capital reported 22 fresh coronavirus cases on Wednesday, including nine staff members of an outsourced agency working for the state government helpline.

“An outsourced/private firm works for the CM helpline that works for promotion of government schemes and for feedback. It is located in a private building and not in any government office building,” said a press statement from the state government.

“Some staff there have tested positive and are being given treatment,” said a government spokesperson in the statement.

The other cases include four government railway police (GRP) personnel and three of a family residing in an apartment in Chaupatia. A woman from this family had earlier tested positive. Now, her daughter-in-law, granddaughter and grandson have been found infected with the Sars-Cov-2 pathogen. These people have been admitted to the Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences.

An army personnel, who returned from Mumbai, also tested positive and was admitted to the Base Hospital. One patient each was reported from Aishbagh, Sikanderbagh, Indira Nagar, Harihar Nagar and Chowk.

Yogesh Raghuvanshi, spokesperson for the office of Lucknow chief medical officer, health teams visited different areas in the city and collected 250 samples from suspected Covid patients.

LUCKNOW: The steepest single-day spike of 20 deaths was reported in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday as the coronavirus toll in the state rose to 321, while 277 new cases of the pandemic took the overall tally of infected patients to 11,610, according to health department data. On the bright side, 302 more patients were declared recovered during the day and they outnumbered the fresh cases, according to the official data.

The number of migrant workers testing positive crossed the 3,000 mark while total tests in the state went past the four-lakh mark, according to official data.

Amethi reported its first Covid-19 death. Five deaths were reported in Basti, three in Ghaziabad, two each in Jhansi and Mainpuri, one each in Agra, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Lucknow, Kanpur, Aligarh, Hapur and Bulandshahr.

Additional chief secretary, home , Awanish Kumar Awasthi said the death rate in Uttar Pradesh was much lower in terms of the population than other states of the country.

“Till now, 3,185 migrant workers have tested positive out of the total 98,078 samples taken from among 1,472,520 inter-state migrants who are under surveillance,” said Dr Vikasendu Agrawal, state surveillance officer

in the health department. He said a death audit was being done.

Among the fresh cases, Jaunpur reported the maximum of 52. Eighteen patients had died on Tuesday in contrast to six to eight deaths reported daily at an average across the state previously. Principal secretary, health and family welfare, Amit Mohan Prasad said the health department was committed to checking deaths of patients and all Covid hospitals were equipped with facilities to provide treatment to the patients.

The health department has urged people to get their sample tested if they have symptoms of the coronavirus infection. If the sample test is positive the patient should be admitted in the hospital immediately.

The test and treatment of Covid patients were free in government hospitals, he said.

A health department officer said earlier deaths were reported among patients in the age group of above 60 years. But those dying now also included people in the age group of up to 20 years and 21-40 years, he added.

In all, 11 patients in the age group of up to 20 years died in the state. In a majority of the cases, people with co-morbidity, including diabetes, heart ailment, kidney-liver problem or hypertension, died after being infected with the coronavirus, he said.

Although people in the young age group were not suffering from any other disease, they were brought late to hospital in a majority of the cases.

Deaths were being reported in the districts in which a large number of coronavirus cases were reported, particularly in west UP or those that witnessed a large influx of migrant workers, he said. On Tuesday, Dr SP Gautam, chief medical superintendent of Ambedkar Nagar district hospital, died at SGPGI. Earlier on May 10, Dr Sunil Agarwal, who was posted in Jalaun district hospital, died at KGMU.

According to the health department, all 75 districts have reported cases till now, including Agra (994), Lucknow (482), Ghaziabad (538), Noida (746), Kanpur (560), Prayagraj (133), Moradabad (275) and Varanasi (248).